We made a special effort to come visit this restaurant because it had such great reviews, but unfortunately our experience was very different.
Before even entering the restaurant there was a feeling that we weren't welcome. There was a man standing in front of the...door, like at most restaurants in Cuba, but instead of ushering us in - I had to ask if we could dine there and he didn't even open the door for us. We brushed it off and assumed it was just a difference of cultures and went inside to enjoy a meal.
From there we were handed menus in Spanish. My husband and I did our best to try to decipher the various options, but neither of us are fluent in Spanish, so we had many questions for our waiter. He was visibly annoyed by our questions and eventually told us, "just order something, it all tastes good" . We followed his advice and haphazardly picked items off the menu that we couldn't fully understand.
Our food came and it was fine. The portions were large, and it seemed to be cooked well, but it wasn't worth the cost of the taxi to get there or the uncomfortable ambiance of feeling unwanted.
After we finished our meals, no one came to ask if we wanted anything else. I had to ask several times for the check, and still we were ignored for at least 20 minutes.
During that time another tourist came in, and as we were sitting quite close to the entrance I overheard her conversation with the manager. She was from Canada, and the manager immediately offered her a menu in English. I thought back on how visibly irritated our waiter was with all of our questions about the menu that we couldn't understand and was confused about why we were never offered a menu in English. So when he walked by again, I asked him in Spanish "Do you have an English menu" and he chuckled and responded "yes".
We are truly confused as to why we received such poor service and made to feel unwelcome. I have to assume it's because we are American's and before we ordered I asked if we could pay in USD. Culturally, I'm not sure if that's a rude question, but up until that point on our trip to Havana, it had been common for restaurants to accept USD, and from everything we heard from locals they often prefer USD. I just wanted to make sure before we racked up a bill, because I was running low on CUP.
Again, the food was fine, but nothing to write home about. The awful service and hostility we received will be remembered forever.
I wouldn't recommend visiting this restaurant during your trip to Havana, unless you're interested in being treated like garbage and enjoy mediocre food. Instead I would recommend visiting one of these establishments who have excellent food and kind, personable staff: JaMa, Cafe Bohemia, El Cafe, Los Mercaderes, Esto no es un cafe, El del Frente, and Lo de Monik.More
